


Never Far Fallen

by tielan



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 06:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12525260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: Come Alls Fallow, nobody trick or treats at Granny's cottage. Well, nearly nobody....





	Never Far Fallen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notwisely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notwisely/gifts).



Alls Fallow Eve was usually quiet for witches.

There was a small bonfire down in Lancre, and much joking about harvests and the sizes of the vegetables they grew this year. The aroma of bread baked from the wheat harvests up from the plains would fill the town square, and Verence usually sent down a cask of last year’s apple wine from the castle, while Nanny Ogg brought out all her ‘advice’ for the young women of the village.

Granny tended to spend Alls Fallow alone. No reason or ritual for it, simply that the turn of the season meant more sickness and illness, the oncoming winter meant more people going out to chop wood, which meant more accidents and injuries, and these things always proceeded better without her.

So she worked in the garden and around the house, preparing for the winter and the next spring, and anyone who needed to find her knew where she was if there was a crisis.

Or if people came looking for a witch.

Even if the bees hadn’t told her there were visitors coming, Granny would have known. Two sets of boots crunched through the fallen leaves littering the path up to the cottage.

“TRICK OR TREAT!”

Two sets of footsteps, one voice.

Granny looked up and over the edge of the picket beheld a girl, just adolescent, a weary expression on her face. Beside her bounced a pointy hat – vividly purple, sewn with bright thread, worn by someone whose enthusiasm was visibly palpable.

“TRICK OR TREAT!” Undaunted by the silence on the other side of the fence, the hat kept bouncing.

The girl met Granny’s gaze, blinking only once before dropping down to look at the bouncing purple hat beside her. “She heard you the first time, Benj.”

“TRICK OR TR—”

As Granny hauled herself up, she reflected that it took quite a lot of gumption to stare her down – and quite a lot of gumption to put a hand over the mouth of a boy who probably wouldn’t think twice about biti—

“Ow!”

“You tried to kill me!”

“I tried to shut you up,” the girl muttered.

“You just don’t want me to get candy!”

She snorted. “Like we’re going to get any candy out here.”

“She’s a witch! They have candy! Their houses are made of candy!”

“You’re welcome to lick her house.” The girl eyed the cottage. “It probably won’t kill you.”

Granny hauled herself to her feet, using the pitchfork with which she’d been turning the soil as a crutch. Her joints ached a great deal these days, and no amount of liniment could stop old age.

“TRICK OR TREEEeeee....” As Granny drew herself up, the shrilly-pitched voice faded as though its owner realised the magnitude of what he had done.

“You’d be the Borensens, I suppose.”

Since the boy had temporarily lost his voice, standing open-mouthed on the grass by the fence, the girl answered her, clear and resigned.

“Yes. We’re from Ankh-Morpork.”

“Just moved up to Lancre, eh?”

“My father wanted to work for the Low King.”

Gytha Ogg had brought the news up to Granny a fortnight ago. The family was very modern, all treechange and newfangled, the father had come up for work, and the parents somewhat dismissive of witches, although Gytha reported they were nice enough to her.

_The boy is ordinary enough, although he needs a good spanking. The girl...well...you’ll understand when you see her._

The bees were buzzing a little louder than normal, a few of them boldly venturing within arm’s reach of the girl. She eyed them, but didn’t try to swipe them away. All well and good.

Granny cleaned out her ear with a slightly grubby pinky finger and regarded the boy. Definitely needed a good spanking, but that wasn’t up to her. “And, I expect this...trick-or-treat is an event down in Ankh-Morpork?”

“We dress up! And go around to houses! And people give us candy! TRICK OR TREAT!”

His sister closed her eyes.

“Oh deary me. And here’s me unprepared for guests...” A witch was never good at pretending – except when she really had to be. Given how close the girl was to just letting loose on her brother, Granny tried not to overdo it. “Let’s just see what I have, shall we?”

Perhaps the ‘oh deary me’ was overdoing it, but the boy bounced in the gate with no loss of enthusiasm. A moment later, the girl followed more slowly. Granny felt the curiosity behind her, a buzzing no less potent than the bees as they passed the nightshades, the beehives, the herb garden, and the orchard.

It seemed the family had come up from Ankh-Morpork not a moment too soon.

However Granny had no cookies or sweeties, and the boy seemed incensed at the thought of having to settle for a mere apple.

The girl took an apple, but rolled her eyes when her brother refused.

“Benj, just take the apple!”

“No! I came up here to see a real witch, Kessi! You said there was a real witch here!”

“I didn’t say she would give us candy! You imagined that all on your own!”

“I did not! You lied to me! I’m gonna tell mummy that you lied to me and then you’ll be sorry!”

Benj appeared to be on the verge of a meltdown. So did his sister – although of a different sort entirely.

Granny set the basket on the table and took an apple out. “Benj!”

The children looked at her, surprised. She regarded the boy. “You don’t like my treat, so have a trick instead.”

Kessi looked surprised, the boy interested.

Granny sat the apple on her palm.

For a few seconds, nothing happened... Then the apple bloomed brown spots, rotting flesh. One curve collapsed in a puff of mildew, and maggots began crawling out of the rot before they blackened and crumbled, as did the remainder of the apple, until all that was left on her palm was a thin film of dust, a couple of seeds, and a stalk.

Benj’s eyes were huge.

“Now,” Granny said. “You can go back to town.”

They went back to town, Kessi trailing behind her still-bouncing brother, her interest and curiosity nearly as potently visible as the cloud of bees that hovered above her. She threw a thoughtful glance at the cottage as she closed the gate, then turned away, biting into the Weatherwax apple she’d kept.

 

 


End file.
